NetApp profits up, shares down

February 16, 2011 -- NetApp reported results for its fiscal 2011 third quarter on Wednesday. Revenue and earnings numbers were impressive, but guidance was apparently viewed as weak because investors sent NetApp’s stock price south.

NetApp raked in revenues of $1.27 billion in the third quarter. That compares to slightly more than $1 billion in the same period a year ago – a 25% growth rate.

Revenues for the first nine months of the fiscal year were $3.61 billion. And NetApp officials estimated revenue for the upcoming fourth quarter of approximately $1.38 billion. That means that the company has a good chance of topping the $5 billion mark for the full fiscal year.

Net income in 3Q2011 was $172 million, or $0.42 per share, compared to net income of $108 billion, or $0.30 a share, in 3Q2010.

Hardware (or what NetApp calls “product”) revenue was $818.6, up 32% year-over-year and +5% over the previous quarter. Software (“software entitlement and maintenance”) revenue was $183.8 million, which is a gain of 8% y-o-y and 3% sequentially. Revenue from services was $265.7 million, up 20% over the same quarter a year ago, and +6.5% sequentially.

I’m not a savvy investor, but those numbers look pretty good to me. Nevertheless, at one point after the report NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP) shares were down about 6%. I’d guess that they’ll recover fairly rapidly.

During its third quarter, NetApp made the biggest product launch in company history (see “NetApp overhauls product line, from arrays to OS” ).

More recently, the company bought Akorri (see “NetApp to acquire Akorri Networks” ), and plans to roll Akorri’s BalancePoint management suite into the NetApp OnCommand management suite.

Related article: “EMC announces 41 new products”